The U.S. should close loopholes in its tax code (2 letters)

Vincent Carroll presents non-compelling arguments for the use of taxation. He leaves off any background for how his argument is going to affect our budget deficits.

How do countries with lower corporate tax rates — many of which are struggling with budget deficits — make up for the loss of tax dollars? How much is earned by other tax means than what the U.S. has?

Why are profits of U.S. companies rising so dramatically even with the 35 percent tax rate? When taxes on corporations go down, who is hurt more: the American public or the rich aristocracy of the corporate executives?

Would Carroll support removing all loopholes in the corporate tax structure, or would he prefer to cherry-pick the ones that have no appreciable effect on revenue generation for programs that help the less fortunate in our society?

Angelo Minuti, Lakewood

This letter was published in the June 9 edition.

Vincent Carroll has it wrong on repatriating “foreign-earned” wealth to the U.S. tax-free. According to Wikipedia, “A study of 60 large U.S. companies found that they deposited $166 billion in offshore accounts during 2012, sheltering over 40 perent of their profits from U.S. taxes.”

These companies neither produce nor sell goods in the tax havens they register in. They pay no overseas taxes to the registry country, and to allow them then to bring this money into the U.S. tax-free means they avoid taxes altogether while the middle class foots the bill for the infrastructure they use.

A better solution is to require all companies to pay U.S. taxes on their profits proportional to the percentage of the revenue they take in from the U.S.

Bob Magnani, Evergreen

This letter was published in the June 9 edition.

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The US should either use a Flat Income Tax with NO exceptions…..or dump the Income Tax in favor or a Flat Sales Tax with NO exceptions (or exceptions like ‘food’ that a computer can easily recognize).

Given the ability of the Federal Government’s Super Computer to match numbers/categories that involves BILLIONS/TRILLIONS of cell phone calls, e-mails, and internet surfing…….it should not seem to be that big of a deal for the US to simply go to a Computerized Flat Tax Format…..that could be so simple……that we could FIRE most of the IRS agents who spend most of their time looking at “loopholes” that would no longer exist.

Guest

Somehow it appears the letter writers think that corporate taxes aren’t paid for by the public. They are. It is the consumer who pays the corporate taxes. The question of the tax rate only says how much of the profits will go to shareholders who will then pay taxes on that money vs how much will go to government.

It appears many on the left are completely ignorant of economics. They probably would be good people to sell perpetual motion machines to.

Dano2

Your dishonest dissembling can’t hide the fact that offshoring taxes is bad fiscal policy for our country and the revenue is needed. Weak apologia are weak.

Best,

D

Guest

Get real. What I said was not dissembling, but reality. Corporations don’t pay taxes, they collect them from all of us. Our corporate tax rate is too high (second highest in the world), so it is natural for smart lawyers to figure out ways to reduce this tax burden.

So we have a bad policy (high corporate tax rate) full of loopholes (offshoring taxes is one of them) and you want to blame corporations for following the law? As Mr. Bumble said, “The law’s an @ss,” not the corporations.

Dano2

Our corporate tax rate is too high (second highest in the world),

You must be used to hanging out on wingnut sites where they aren’t smart enough to not be fooled by this old talking point.

On those sites, they also aren’t smart enough to know that low corporate taxes do not mean economies do better. These weak talking points don’t fly, lad.

Best,

D

thor

Where do you get your misinformation. Countries with lower corporate tax rates most certainly do well. Quit dissembling.

thor

He likes to use the term “dissembling.” I guess it makes him sound intelligent.

peterpi

Yeah, we all know how that shell game is played:
Corporations: You can’t tax our profits, because they’re already taxed as capital gains on our large shareholders’ income taxes.
Large shareholders: You can’t tax our capital gains, because the corporations already paid income tax on their profits.
Desired result: Neither corporations nor large shareholders pays income taxes, only working chumps.

Guest

Only problem with that is both corporations and stock holders do pay taxes. Want to try again?

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